Italian job gave us belief, says Ljungberg
Arsenal midfielder Fredrik Ljungberg helped Arsenal into the knockout stages of the Champions League – but pinpointed the 5-1 win over Inter Milan as the game which helped them through.
The Gunners were bottom of their group after picking up just one point from their first three games.
But they won their last three matches and made sure of top spot in Group B tonight with a 2-0 defeat of Lokomotiv Moscow, who also qualified.
And Swedish midfielder Ljungberg said after the Highbury success: “We had a bit of a problem at the beginning, but won a couple of games in a row and finished well tonight.
“I can’t explain it, why we didn’t play well at the beginning really – but we started to fight a bit more for each other in the second half of the group and got the results as well.
“Winning 5-1 in Milan gives us the self belief we didn’t have before.”
After Robert Pires opened the scoring before Ljungberg gave Arsenal breathing space in the second half.
The Swede added on Sky Sports: “When we got the second goal we felt a lot more confident – we said ‘now let’s hold the lead’.
“We don’t want to be big headed now, so we’ll take it one game at a time and try and do a lot better than we have done before.”
